The Submarine in War and Peace: Its Development and its Possibilities

by Simon Lake

The War of the Rebellion in the United States had started a few months before he came to live in Cork. Toward the end of November, 1862, he read in the Cork Examiner an announcement of the first combat between armored ships that had occurred about two weeks previously; that is, the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac at Hampton Roads, Va., in which the little Monitor defeated the Merrimac, of twice her bulk and power, after a short contest. Just before the remarkable duel the Merrimac, ignoring the guns of her opponent, the wooden ship Congress, sank her by striking her with her massive iron stem. The Cumberland, another ship like the Congress, lying in the water near her, did not wait to be similarly rammed, but made haste to run aground on the nearest shallow place. But this did not save her, as the Merrimac attacked her and set her on fire with her heavy guns, while ignoring her fire, which did very little harm. This epoch-making contest in Virginian waters astonished naval authorities the world over, especially in England, whose main reliance for the maintenance of their power was placed in the "wooden walls," and in the bravery and skill of their seamen. The English nervousness was due to the demonstration at Hampton Roads that wooden ships could be no more of a hindrance to an armorclad than the Cumberland and Congress were to the Merrimac, and that if the Yankees built a few more monitors and sent them across the Atlantic quickly, they could come to London by water absolutely unhindered and destroy London and all the English navy within reach. All the English naval depots could, with practically no hindrance, be treated similarly within a few months, and an end made of English oppression from which it could never recover.

That this is no wild dreaming will be evident to everybody, when the action of the English Parliament regarding a proposal made there by a Lord of the Admiralty was considered and acted upon favorably in rapid order. A certain Lord Paget, who commanded an English ship at the bombardment of Sebastopol, proving that he was not without experience in justifying the assertion, told them that if all the five hundred and eighty English warships then in existence were sent into the Cork harbor; and if the little American Monitor were to get in there, too, at the same time; and also if a suitable chain boom were fixed so as to enclose the whole lot, that the same little Monitor could send them all to the bottom within a few hours without being compelled to fire a single shot. Lord Paget made these assertions in support of a motion he made before the House of Commons, proposing that the unspent part of an appropriation of about $75,000,000 designed to build forts to defend harbors in the South of England for the protection of their fleets against the French and Yankees should be immediately applied to the construction of armorclad ships. Without any delay a bill was passed making the required change in the appropriation bill. Very shortly after the Admiralty proposed the construction of four ironclads, which proposal was immediately adopted.

Four large battleships were taken and razed and covered with armor-plate. They were followed later by many much more powerful vessels designed especially to carry armor, until at the present day the English Navy is competent to engage all the European navies together. Mr. Holland, reflecting upon the result of the duel at Hampton Roads, foresaw this result clearly, because he knew that England possessed the necessary materials, money, and mechanical skill required to provide ships enough to maintain her claim to her assumed title, "Mistress of the Seas," and to enable her to terrorize the greatest nations of Europe that had persistently shown lack of wisdom by their neglect to properly provide themselves with the only weapon that could resist her; that is, a sufficiently powerful navy.

They trusted, to their undoing, to great armies, forgetting that England had already proved her ability to cause combinations of her former enemies against any one of them.

But, having carefully noted the development of armored ships in the American, English, and French navies since the first duels of armorclads at Hampton Roads, Mr. Holland conceived the notion that it would be possible to build a vessel that would utilize water cover as a protection against an enemy's projectiles and thus be capable of ramming her enemy without exposing herself to attack. The study of the possibility of designing a practicable submarine boat to encounter English ironclads in this manner became the most interesting problem that he had to solve for a considerable time afterward. He further relates the physical difficulties that had to be overcome; bad health and hard work hindered consideration of the problem for a long time, until one day he happened to see in a newspaper an account of the experiments made with a submarine in New York harbor.[1] The description of its performances appeared to be incredible when he remembered the physical difficulties that had to be overcome, as his former study of the subject revealed them. Reflecting later that it was foolish and unfair to ridicule and laugh at a project which was described only by a short notice in the newspaper, and that described only its success in overcoming the physical difficulties in its operation, he started on a thorough study of the question in connection with a design roughly sketched on a sheet of paper; giving due attention to the essential points concerned in using a submarine boat so that it would be practical to live and work while completely submerged even in rough water; so as to propel it, first, at an even or any required depth; second, to be able to steer it with certainty in any required direction; third, to have an ample supply of compressed air on board, as well as the necessary apparatus to renew it when exhausted.

Fortunately he had sufficient engineering knowledge to determine the thickness and weight of a spindle-shaped steel shell competent to endure the external water pressure due to a submergence of two hundred and fifty feet depth, which was probably the greatest pressure it would ever be compelled to endure when in action. He was also competent to provide for a change of trim and for regulating the degree of submergence, as well as to provide for a slow or a rapid rise to the surface as circumstances might require. After completing his design, however, he found there was no one with confidence enough in the idea to give him backing. He was regarded as a second Jules Verne; in a word, a dreamer. He accordingly locked his plans in his trunk and for the time being forgot all about them.

A few years later his mother came to the United States and he decided to follow her. He landed in Boston in the winter of 1872, and in the middle of typical New England weather as found at that time of the year. Everything was covered with ice and snow, quite different from the mild winters he had known in the little "Green Isle." One morning after his arrival he was walking through one of the streets of the "Hub," and, not being possessed of the agility of a mountain goat—so necessary for a man to navigate one of our American streets during an icy spell—he had not gone far before he fell and broke his leg. Passersby helped him home, and he was assured by the physician who set the fracture that he would not be able to move about for at least two months. Finding himself with so much idle time on his hands, he decided to get out his forgotten plans and study them again. The result was that by the time his convalescence was over he had drawn a new and much superior design.

But it was not until 1876, when he was teaching school in Paterson, New Jersey, that he succeeded in securing financial backing for his first boat. A friend at that time raised the necessary capital, about $6000, and the building was done at the Albany Street Iron Works, corner of Albany and Washington Streets, New York, in 1876, in the shop owned by Messrs. Andrew and Ripley. To their courteous superintendent, Mr. Dickey, he was indebted for many suggestions toward rendering the boat practical and useful. Early in 1878 she was removed to Todd and Rafferty's shop in Paterson, New Jersey; he, being a resident of that city at that time, could complete her outfit more easily there. Toward the end of July, 1878, she was taken to a point where she could be more easily launched, about one hundred yards above the Falls Bridge, on the right bank of the river. She was taken there late one fine afternoon and launched from the wagon on which she was moved. Mr. William Dunkerly, the engineer in charge of the operation, fastened a strong line on her bow to bring her to when she was afloat; but she did not float long, for the wagon wheels sank in the made ground where they launched her, the greater part of the wagon being submerged, as well as nearly one-half of the volume of the boat, leaving the boat with the stern considerably elevated. After hard work on the part of Messrs. Dunkerly and John Lister, the owners of a boathouse above the bridge she was pulled off the wagon and floated for a few minutes, amid the cheers of mill operatives who lined the banks and covered every available spot on the bridge. But the cheering suddenly ceased when the boat backed a little out in the river, for she settled deeper in the water and finally sank, to the great disappointment of the crowd, who expressed their feelings in loud yells until Messrs. Dunkerly and Lister moved the wagon out of the way, took hold of the boat's painter, and pulled her out of the water high and dry on the spot previously occupied by the wagon. It is no exaggeration to say that the natives were much astounded to see a little iron boat weighing four tons pulled by two men from the bottom of the Passaic and left standing high and dry on the bank.

The next day the accidental submergence was explained by the absence of two five-eighths inch screw plugs from the bottom of the central compartment in which the operator would be seated while the boat was in operation. By opening a stop valve while the boat was in operation under water a sufficient quantity of water would enter, surround the operator in his diving suit, and render the boat and its contents heavier than water, so that it would sink as it did after having been launched with the plug holes open. The reason that it did not sink, and that it was so easy a matter to pull it ashore, was because the total weight on board on that occasion was much more than it was designed to carry. The central space then carried water equal to the weight of the diver and his suit of armor, as well as the additional quantity that would fill the space around him, as well as that which would be due to the distention of the suit by air pressure while it was in action during diving. The actual practicability of being able to handle the boat under these conditions was the first important point proved by experiment on the day following the launch.